It Started With my Roommate's Lacy Bra
by I am the Cake Fairy
Summary: It was all because Francine just couldn't keep it in her pants.  Or, rather, out of them. GenFlip, LameAU, US/UK and others.
1. Abnormal Activity

**Title:** It Started With My Roommate's Lacy Bra

**Author:** Neville (_I Am The Cake Fairy_)

**Genre: **Humour, Romance. AU

**Warnings:** Lame-College-Alternate-Universe, an Absurdly-Large-Amount of Cursing, a Poorly-Written-and-Clearly-Clichéd Plot, Complete Gen-Flips, and _PreFemSlash_. Oh yes. I am being daring tonight!

**Author's Note:** I am (quite possibly only temporarily) back! Oh yes, dear readers, be terrified! Nay, be paralyzed by the sheer horror of the idea! (Why yes, I do believe my writing to be that bad.) First off, this is my first attempt at a Hetalia fan-fiction. For that, you can thank the lovely **CaCoPhOnY Of ScReAmS** (and by this, I truly do mean thank her: she is an awesome writer, and I get a lot of inspiration from her). I would also like to note that the names for Alfred (Ali F. Kirkland) and Arthur (Aretha Kirkland) were thought up by her.

**Disclaimer:** _"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."_ This is for personal/ entertainment purposes; I own nothing. If I did own Hetalia, it would be a lot less educational. No, seriously. I'm just not that smart.

**Playlist**: Multilanguage Disney songs. Those things are addicting.

**Note on Names:** England is Aretha Kirkland, America is Ali F. Jones, France is Francine Bonnefoy, and Canada is Maddie Williams. Surprise guests include Poland as Filipina Łukasiewicz (according to a name site, it is a Polish name that means "Lover of Horses," which caused me to chuckle darkly) and Lithuania as Toria Lorinaitutė (I did some serious research on this, so sorry if the last name does not match up well based on marriage status, etc. Not gonna lie, the research was fun.)

-u-

Aretha stared in poorly concealed fury at the lacy bra dangling from the handle of her dorm room door. The bra itself wasn't too offensive; it was size 34B, a simple cream colour, and, considering its owner, surprisingly modest and tasteful. (In fact, the modesty and simplicity of the bra was almost so surprising that for a moment, Aretha thought the bra was her own. But no, wait, she was a C-cup, wasn't she, pointed out small part of her mind with no small amount of pride.) No, on its own, the bra was a harmless piece of polyester hanging by one of its shoulder straps off well-used doorknob. It was what the bra represented that had Aretha trembling in rage.

Francine had brought one of her conquests back to the dorm with her - and didn't want any interruptions.

For a brief moment, she considered walking into the dorm anyway, out of spite, but the muffled thumps and groans coming from behind the door stilled the twitch her hand made toward the knob. An unneeded memory from the last time she had tried that flashed across her mind and she shuddered. Her other hand clenched around the shoulder strap of her bag and, flushing angrily, she turned away from her dorm and made for the common area.

Tossing her head so that her long blond ponytails cracked like whips behind her, Aretha muttered darkly to herself about bloody nymphomaniac room mates who never actually wore the bras they owned.

"And of course," she continued as she descended the stairs to the common area, "she chooses tonight of all nights to bring someone home. The night before one of the most important midterms of my college life! If I fail tomorrow, there's no way I shall be able to keep my grades up enough to pass!"

Kicking the door open at the bottom of the stairs, Aretha didn't bother apologising to the girl who was in the way and ended up getting smacked in the face. Clutching her nose and cowering in on herself as her curly blond hair fell from its loose bun to settle around her shoulders, the smaller girl watched in silent terror as Aretha stormed down the hall still muttering to herself. Aretha soon found herself in the almost empty common area and sighed. Ignoring the two other girls in the room, she sat in her favourite chair and resisted the urge to slouch; she couldn't let some French deviant cause her to lapse from being an absolutely invincible English gentlewoman! She pulled her bag from off her shoulder and rummaged in it until she found her notebook and a copy of the literature assignment. Plucking the pencil she kept tucked behind her ear, she turned her full attention to her assignment, determined to get _some_ work done while she was restricted from her room.

"I wonder what's up with Aretha," one of the girls, a slim brunette with layered shoulder-length hair, murmured to the other, placing a finger in her book to hold her place. Her companion, a petite blonde with a similar haircut lounging next to her in a faded plaid button down shirt, snorted and continued trying to spin the basketball on her finger.

"Like, who cares, Toria?" she laughed, swinging her legs up onto the couch she was sitting on so that her feet were resting in the brunette's lap. "She's, like, not in any pain or whatever, and besides, aren't I, like, _totally_ more interesting?"

Toria let out a sigh, but allowed a small smile to pull at her lips. "Totally, Filipina." She made as if to return to reading her book, but paused, looking down at the feet settled in her lap. "Oh gross, Fili!" she said, grimacing at the blonde's ratty Converses. "I don't want dirt on my skirt! Why didn't you take your shoes off? Better yet, why haven't you gotten new shoes yet? You've had these since junior year of high school!"

"But Toria," Filipina whined, abandoning the basketball in favour of playing with one of the many holes in her jeans, "Next to you, these shoes are, like, my best friends! Like, do you know how hard it is to find shoes as totally awesome as these?" The blonde let out a soft giggle as her friend rolled her eyes and brushed at her dark blue pleated skirt before going back to reading her book.

A comfortable silence enveloped the room, disturbed only by the scratching of Aretha's pencil and the turning of the pages in Toria's book. After some time, the blonde sighed loudly, and reached forward to poke Toria's cheek. When the brunette ignored her, Filipina continued to poke her, waiting a few seconds between each poke. At last, Toria turned to give her companion an exasperated look. Filipina giggled and extended her finger to poke the other girl's nose, but Toria darted forward and snapped at the air just in front of the offending digit. The blonde squealed and leaned in to rub her nose against Toria's. The brunette's face grew bright red, but she continued the Eskimo kiss.

Almost forgotten, Aretha felt a blush quickly spreading over her cheeks and ears and looked away from the two affectionate girls.

Filipina swung her legs back down to the floor and snuggled up against her friend. "Hey, Toria?"

"Yeah?" the girl responded, her face still as bright as ever.

"Do you, like, have the time?"

Toria glanced at her phone that was sitting on the end table next to the couch. "Almost nine thirty; why?"

"Like, oh my gawd, Toria! The game's on tonight," the blonde shouted, jumping up from the couch. She began tugging at the slightly bemused brunette. "We're, like, totally gonna miss it if you don't hurry up!"

"Wait, Fili, I need to grab my stuff!"

In a whirl of faded plaid and blue pleats, the two girls were gone down the hall. A slight blush still tinting her cheeks, Aretha sighed and turned her focus back to her assignment.

-u-

"Well, I least I've finished my lit," Aretha mumbled, tucking the pencil back into her hair. Sliding the notebook and assignment sheet back into her bag, she stood from her chair and stretched. After feeling her back pop two times, she relaxed and smoothed down her modest olive green skirt. Pulling her phone out of her shoulder bag, she checked the time and found it to be ten forty-five. Surprisingly, the common area had remained empty ever since the blonde and brunette left; apparently, the students were actually taking midterms seriously this semester.

"That bloody pervert better be done by now," Aretha said to herself, shooting a dark glare in the general direction of her dorm. Shrugging her bag back onto her shoulder, she made her way down the brightly lit, if empty, hallway that led to the stairs. Just as she was reaching for the handle, the door burst open, nearly hitting Aretha in the face as karma quickly and efficiently doled out justice.

"Da-na-na-na-na-na, BATMAN!" shouted the person from the entrance to the stairs, who happened to be a tall, athletic girl in an oversized McDonald's "We Love to See You Smile" tee shirt and scandalously short stars-and-stripes pyjama shorts. She stood in what could only be described as a 'heroic' pose, with one fist on her hip and the other in the air, her glasses sliding up her nose as she looked vaguely upwards.

She froze when she noticed Aretha glaring at her. When Aretha raised an eyebrow at her, she erupted into frenzied action.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay? I didn't hit you, did I? Are you hurt?" the girl babbled as she stepped into Aretha's personal bubble. Aretha made a frustrated noise and flushed as she attempted to push the girl off her.

"I'm fine, I'm fine! Just gerrof me!"

"Sorry, sorry!" the girl said, a hand coming up to ruffle her own chin length blonde hair, leaving one of her bangs standing straight up. Just by listening to the girl's accent, not to mention seeing her choice of clothing, Aretha was quite positive that this girl was an American. With this fact alone, Aretha could feel her irritation with the girl grow. Much to her vexation, the idiot was still talking.

"I can't tell you how many times my roommate's told me not to kick the door open! I guess I should really listen to her, but sometimes it's so easy to forget she's there, you know? I mean, we've known each other since high school and all, but she just seems to blend in to everything! Just the other day-"

"Listen," Aretha interrupted, crossing her arms across her chest. "I honestly don't care. Please move so I can go back to my dorm."

The girl frowned, but moved out of the way. As Aretha reached the landing for the first floor, she could hear the other blonde shout, "Hope your night gets better, Miss Grumpy Gills!"

Aretha flushed and slammed the door to the stairwell.

She continued walking down the hallway, staring at the worn linoleum floor and telling herself that the heat in her cheeks was from her exasperation at the American and not the fact that she had noticed the other girl wasn't wearing a bra.

So caught up was she in her thoughts, Aretha barely noticed when she reached the door to her dorm. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she looked towards the door. When she opened her eyes, she nearly screamed.

The bra was still there, in all of its feminine lacy glory.

"Fuck," she said, quite loudly. She backed up so that she was leaning against the wall opposite her door, and slowly slid down until her backside hit the floor. She cradled her head and sighed, "Fuck," again.

She needed sleep, or that midterm was going to kick her ass. Quickly going through the names of her friends in her head, Aretha quickly determined that she had no where to stay for the night. It wasn't that she didn't have that many friends, she'd vehemently argue, it was just that…well…as an absolutely invincible British gentlewoman, she had to make sure anyone who might be called her friend had to meet a certain set of standards, and very few people at the University happened to meet all requirements. Yes. That was it. Her friendship troubles aside, she really did need to find someplace to stay for the night; judging by the relative silence from behind her dorm's door, Aretha could guess that Francine had either fallen asleep without remembering to remove the bra, or was spiting her.

Aretha was willing to bet a great deal of money on the latter.

The sound of a door opening caused Aretha to lift her head as, against her will, hope swelled in her chest. Too late she realised that the sound was too distant to be from the door in front of her, and Aretha turned her head to look desolately at the door to the stairwell. Somehow, she was unsurprised to see it was the blonde idiot from earlier; of _course_ her night had to get worse. The blonde had a can of Coke in one had and was using the other to press buttons on her phone; Aretha noted, with a mix of relief and annoyance, that the other girl hadn't noticed her. Sighing, she returned her face to the cradle of her hands. She listened to the soft pad of the girl's bare feet on the linoleum and prayed to whatever higher power that was listening that the girl's footsteps wouldn't stop by her.

And of course, they did.

"Well, hey," came the bright and cheery voice of the American, "if it isn't Miss Grumpy Gills!"

Aretha lifted her head and glared despondently up at the girl's wide grin. "Why, pray tell, do you insist upon making my night worse?"

The girl laughed and dismissively waved a hand at Aretha. "Whatever, honey, you don't even know me. Speaking of which…I'm Ali F. Jones! Now it's your turn to tell me your name!"

Tipping her head back against the wall, Aretha asked, "If I tell you, will you go away?"

"Maybe!"

"Fine," she sighed, and lightly shook the hand Ali offered her. "It's Aretha Kirkland."

"Nice to meet you," the girl laughed. She paused and looked at Aretha. "Hey, you're British aren't you? I love your accent!"

"Really?" Aretha asked, feeling the sarcasm easily slip into the word. "I find yours quite irritating."

Unsurprisingly, Ali just laughed at the insult. She looked down at the blonde at her feet and seemed to realise for the first time that the girl was sitting on the floor in the middle of an empty hallway fairly late at night. "So, why are you out here? I mean, Midterms are tomorrow, right?"

Aretha flushed and looked away, making a vague waving motion towards her door. "My room mate's locked me out. She has someone over."

"Someone over? Like…oh. Oh!"

When the American girl fell silent, Aretha turned to look at her; her brows were furrowed and she appeared to be thinking. "Do you have anywhere to sleep tonight?" she asked the girl on the floor.

"Not really, no," Aretha found herself answering.

"Well," Ali drawled, a slight southern accent showing, "I guess you could spend the night in my dorm."

Aretha expected herself to respond, "No, thank you, I'd rather sleep out here than bunk with an American ditz," but what came out was, "What about your roommate?"

"Who?"

"Your roommate. The person who also inhabits your room," Aretha sighed, feeling herself grow irritated again.

"Oh yeah! My roommate…she's out tonight, I think. I guess, I mean she's not here, so she's probably out, right?" Ali laughed again. "Anyway, are you in?"

Aretha stared at Ali, weighing her pros and cons. If she accepted Ali's offer, she could get a good night's sleep, and would be in a better state of mind to take her midterms. On the other hand, she had just met the girl and knew all of about three things about her: she was loud, she was American, and she apparently was willing to offer her room to complete strangers. Only the last of those could have endeared the girl to her, but - as she was thinking this she stifled a yawn - she really did need her sleep…

"Alright, then," she conceded, taking the offered hand and allowing Ali to help her up, "I'll take you up on your offer."

"Cool, it'll be just like a sleep over!" the taller blonde exclaimed, giggling. Aretha stared at her, readjusting the shoulder strap of her bag. Ali didn't seem to notice, and began walking to the end of the hallway before stopping at a door and pushing it open; Aretha noted that she hadn't even bothered properly closing it, let alone locking it, before leaving.

The first thing Aretha noticed about Ali's dorm was that appeared to be split clear down the middle. One side of the room was neat an organised: the doors to the closet were closed; the floor was clean and recently vacuumed; even the bed was made, corners tucked in with a military precision. The other was nothing less than a disaster area: burger wrappers and soda cans were strewn across the floor, mixing with discarded socks and bras; the closet doors were open, with even more laundry flowing out onto the floor; the bed was messy and unmade with a laptop sitting open in the middle; there was even a shirt hanging over the lamp on the bedside table. Aretha immediately knew that the chaos belonged to Ali.

"You can sleep over there," Ali said, pointing at the neatly made bed. She closed the door behind them. "She keeps her side pretty clean, so you don't have to worry about catching anything, or something like that." Ali paused and gazed intensely and the wall the bed sat against. Aretha raised an eyebrow at the girl, but turned and put her bag on the floor by the bed. Just as Aretha was reaching up to take down her two ponytails, Ali shouted, "MADDIE! That's her name!"

Aretha jumped, and turned to look at the now broadly grinning girl incredulously. "You're completely gormy, aren't you?"

Ali stared blankly at her. "What does that mean?"

The smaller blonde ignored her and went back to taking down her hair. After a couple moments of awkward silence, Aretha turned to glance at Ali only to see that the other girl was looking at her curiously. "What?"

"You'll probably want something to sleep in, yeah? That skirt doesn't look like it'd be very comfortable in bed." Aretha blushed and opened her mouth to protest, but Ali had already flounced over to her closet and was rummaging through one of the clothes baskets. With an "aha!" she pulled out a large "I Heart New York" tee shirt and Superman boxers. "Will these work for you?" she asked, handing them out towards Aretha.

Aretha snorted. "Are you absolutely sure they're sanitary?"

"You know," Ali said, frowning as she placed a hand on her hip, "You could be a lot less of an ass to the girl who took you in without even knowing you."

"Fine," Aretha said, her blush increasing. She grabbed the clothes and paused before saying softly, "Thank you."

"No problem!" The girl grinned and flashed a thumb's up. "Besides, I'm the heroine and as a heroine, I must do my best to save any damsels in distress! Even if they are as cranky as you!"

Aretha choked on air and felt her blush grow deeper. "I'm not a damsel in distress! I just happened to be down on my luck!"

Ali laughed loudly and obnoxiously, reaching forward to poke the smaller blonde's cheek. "You're so cute when you're flustered, Artie!"

"I-it's Aretha, and shut up!"

Ali giggled again and jumped onto her own bed, curling one of her legs under her. She tapped the touch pad to wake it up and began typing on the keyboard. Clutching the clothes the other girl had given her, Aretha shifted awkwardly, wondering if she should leave the dorm room to change in their floor's bathroom. Noticing Aretha hadn't moved since she received the clothes, Ali looked at her curiously.

"Well? Go on and change then!"

Aretha started and glared at the other. "N-not with you watching, you git!"

The taller blonde put her hands up in the universal 'I surrender' motion and turned back to her computer. "I'm not, I'm not," she said, "I'm just sitting here, innocently checking my email, honest!"

The British girl let out a "humph" and turned her back on Ali to change. As she pulled the shirt over her head, she could hear Ali pull out a drawer and rummage in it before closing it again. After she was properly dressed in the clothes Alia had loaned her, Aretha turned back to face the other girl. She opened her mouth to say something, but noticed that the American was staring intensely at the screen, eyes wide, and had headphones on. Out of curiosity, Aretha moved to peak over her shoulder to see the screen, and saw that the girl was watching a poorly filmed movie.

Plucking one of the earbuds from the girl's ear, Aretha asked, "What are you watching?"

Ali yelped and scrambled away from the British girl, eyes wide in shock and fear. Aretha blinked in confusion at Ali and raised her eyebrow when the American began laughing a little shakily.

"Oh, it's just you, Artie," she said, heaving a sigh of relief.

"Aretha. And who else would it have been, you twit?" she asked, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Haha, I thought you were a gho-uhh, someone else."

Aretha rolled her eyes. "So what is it that you are watching?"

"Hmm?" Ali looked up from the screen, after hitting 'pause.' "Oh it's just a horror movie my friend let me borrow _Paranormal _something or another, I think."

"Ah."

With nothing else to say, Aretha turned to the other bed and pulled down the comforter, revealing white sheets with red maple leaves. Ignoring the many questions that popped into her head at the sight of the sheets, Aretha slid into the bed. She turned to tell Ali that she was going to sleep, but the other girl was already too enraptured by the movie to listen. Aretha rolled her eyes and leaned over the side of the bed to reach her bag; pulling out her phone and setting her alarm for the morning, she also extracted her iPod.

The British girl drifted off to sleep with Ali's soft "eep!"s punctuating the lulls in her music.

-u-

Aretha was awoken by a hand shaking her shoulder rather roughly and a voice whispering in her ear, "Artie! Artie, please wake up!" She attempted to swat the hand away and ignore the voice, rolling over to face the other way. Despite this, the hand returned with more fervour than ever, and voice was getting louder and more hysterical.

"Please, Artie! I neeeeed you!"

No longer pretending to be asleep, Aretha groaned loudly and sat up, reaching over to turn on the lamp that sat on the bedside table. She turned her attention to Ali, who was kneeling by the side of her bed, the other girl's face alarmingly close to her own. Ali's eyes, wide and very blue without her glasses, were glistening with tears, and she was biting her lower lip. Aretha felt her cheeks begin to heat up as the word 'adorable' flashed across her mind.

Hurriedly, so as to get that idea out of her head, Aretha asked, "Why did you wake me up in the middle of the bloody- what time is it anyways?" She reached forward and grabbed at her phone. "Why did you wake me up at bloody three in the morning?"

Ali grabbed at her hand and Aretha was slightly worried when she realised that the other girl was trembling.

"I don't want the ghosts to get me," she whispered.

The smaller blonde yawned. "So you woke me up because…?"

"Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Aretha levelled deadpan look at the girl. "What."

"Uhm, the ghosts are more likely to go after us if we're separated, so we need to sleep together! Like, think buddy system!"

"You won't let me go back to sleep until I let you have your way, will you?"

Managing a shaky grin, she shook her head. "Nope!"

"Fine, get in."

"Thank you, Artie!"

Aretha frowned, but scooted to the other side of the bed as far as she could. "It's Aretha."

She felt the bed dip as Ali settled in the bed next to her and, despite her best efforts, she could feel the blush in her cheeks begin to grow anew. Sighing, she turned away from the other girl to face the wall. She closed her eyes, wondering where her iPod had gone, and was about to drift off again when Ali kicked the back of her thigh, very nearly giving her a Charlie horse.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" she hissed, turning to face the American.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Ali whispered back, trying to slide further away. She made a face as she felt the bed slope out from under her. "Do you think you could move over a bit, Artie?"

"No," Aretha hissed, not even bothering to correct the other, "I'm already up against the wall! It's a twin-sized bed; did you expect two full-grown girls two fit comfortably?"

"Well, I figured that since you were pretty short, it'd be alright," the taller blonde responded. Aretha huffed and was about to suggest that Ali get out and sacrifice herself to the ghosts so she could get a good night's sleep when the girl interrupted her. "No, no, here, I've got an idea. Turn the other way, and get as close to the wall as you can, okay?"

Aretha sighed, but did as she was told. She nearly screamed as she felt Ali's arms wrap around her, just above her bellybutton, and felt her chest press against her back.

"_What are you doing?_" she hissed, her face burning in the dark. Nope, definitely no bra on.

"I'm making it possible for us to share the bed comfortably," came Ali's response, warm breath brushing against her neck. Aretha shivered. "Just accept it, alright? I'm not letting go."

And despite her common sense screaming _no!,_ despite the fact that she had just met this girl a couple of hours ago and was now spooning with her, despite the fact (or maybe because of it) that she had a possibly fatal midterm in the morning, Aretha surprisingly did accept it. She was asleep within a few minutes.

-u-

Aretha woke up at seven as her phone began playing its tinny alarm tone and immediately noticed that Ali's hand, which has by resting on her stomach when she fell asleep, had moved significantly upwards since then. Ali's other hand, which was trapped under Aretha's body, was touching on the small amount of skin that had been revealed when Aretha's shirt had ridden up while she was asleep. The other girl's forehead was resting on her shoulder, and Ali's legs were wrapped almost possessively around her own.

Never before had Aretha leapt out of bed as quickly as she did then.

Unfortunately for her, her legs were still tangled with Ali's, and she ended up nearly falling to floor in her haste. She quickly righted herself, and grabbed her phone and shut it off before throwing it, and all of her clothing, back into her bag.

Awakened by the noise and motion, Ali sat up in bed, yawning and rubbing her eyes. "What'cha doing, Artie?" she slurred after a particularly large yawn.

Aretha started and gave Ali a deer-in-the-headlights look before straightening and pulling her bag back onto her shoulder.

"Thank you very much for letting me stay with you last night," she said quickly, a blush still staining her cheeks. "It was very kind of you and I'm quite positive that my midterm grade will reflect your benevolence." She was babbling now, she could tell, so she quickly made her way to the door, stepping over a shirt that had somehow crossed over from Ali's side of the room.

"Hey Artie," Ali called out just as Aretha's hand touched the door, "If you ever need a place to stay for the night again, don't hesitate to come knocking on my door, alright?"

Aretha blushed even harder, but managed to mumble "yeah" before she rushed down the hall to her own dorm's door which was, by then, braless.

-u-

Ve. I think I'm addicted to fem!Poland now. No lie, when I get to college I want to either be someone like her, or date someone like her.

But this. This was a bitch to write, if only because I'm so out of practice writing. But, because I was so totally out of practice, I decided to write out an outline for this. (I was so proud of myself!) Except, the outline was about two pages in Word… So I'm terribly sorry this story is so long with so little going on in it. (over 5,000 words, futherduckers!) I need to learn how to condense, yeah? Uhm. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Also, if you see any typos, etc., please do tell me! I have no beta…and I'm lazy.

Does anyone else think that the idea of male!Hungary creeping on the girl!pairings is less cute and more creepy than regular Hungary creeping on the male!pairings?


	2. The Gayer Witch Project

**Author's Note:** Ve. I never actually planned on making this story anything more than a oneshot. But…you guys are so sweet~! Plus, I really enjoy writing these characters (and can't quite bring myself to start a whole new LCAU story without writing something canon first). So, to indulge my guilty pleasures and without crossing any self-drawn lines, I shall continue adding chapters to this story. It's, uh, not really gonna have, like, a continuing plot with a big twist at the end or whatever…just a bunch of small, silly stories strung together. But still, at least it's got me writing again, yeah? Credit for Prussia, Spain, Romano, Finland, and Hungary's names go to **CaCoPhOnY Of ScReAmS**. Unless someone else came up with them first. Uh. Well the point is that I didn't come up with those names.

**Disclaimer**: Not~ miiine~.

**Playlist**: Always I Want To Be With You by _Erasure_, and a healthy dose of _Tegan and Sara_

**Note on Names**: (to be added on to from the previous story). Prussia is Gillian Beillschmidt, Spain is Anita Fernandez Carriedo, Romano is Lovina Vargas, Austria is Rosalind Edelstein, Sweden is Berit Oxenstierna, Finland is Tina Väinämöinen, Estonia is Eliisabet von Bock (I honestly have no idea how Estonian names are structured or if they're supposed to have gender agreement, but we can just pretend that this is correct, yeah?), and Hanatamago remains Hanatamago because I don't know if it's possible to genderbend that name. And then there are the briefly mentioned: Japan is Kiku (for I am lazy and technically, Kiku is a girl's name, according to various baby name sites), Cuba is Alejandra, the Netherlands is Holly (bask in my originality!), Ukraine is Keesa Braginsky, Iceland is Eydis, Hungary is Elias Héderváry, Monaco is Marcello, Seychelles is Michel, Germany is Liesl Beillschmidt (I couldn't help it!), and Denmark is Maren.

-u-

It had been two weeks since Aretha had spent the night in Ali's dorm.

Aretha sat cross-legged on her bed, absently picking at the hem of the "I Heart New York" shirt she was wearing as she sneered at her roommate.

"You do realise you look like a prostitute, right?"

Francine gave her a lewd grin from the mirror as she smeared on another layer of red lipstick. "Ah, _mon petit lapin_," she purred, tossing her long, softly curling blond hair over her shoulder. "_Tu n'es pas très adorable quand tu es jalouse._"

Aretha's eyelid twitched as her hand curled into a fist. "Bloody tramp, you know I don't speak your language!"

Much to Aretha's irritation, Francine only laughed, smoothing down invisible wrinkles in her black skinny jeans. The French girl also had on a black and white patterned tube top, studded black leather ankle boots, and far too much make up on for Aretha's taste.

"I was only commenting on 'ow _charming_ your attitude is tonight," the taller girl said airily as she swung on a pink leather jacket over her shoulders. "You must be attracting the men like, 'ow do the Americans say? Ah, yes, like bees to 'oney." Francine picked up her small black clutch and made her way to the door. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and gave Aretha a sly look out of the corner of her eyes. "Or maybe you are more interested in the birds, _non_?"

Aretha flushed and threw a pillow at the other girl. Sadly, she missed.

"Oh, shut up and get the bloody hell out of here!"

"Your words wound me!" Francine cried, clutching at her chest dramatically. Aretha threw another pillow, with better accuracy. "Ow! No need to get violent! 'ow uncivilized!" Francine strode over to the mirror and fussed with her hair for a few seconds before returning to the door and opening it. "I am going to be out with my ladies tonight, and you know 'ow much we like to party, _oui_?"

Yes, Aretha did. However, she would prefer not to remember the few instances she had gone out drinking with Francine and her ladies; the hangovers were killer, but the waking up half naked in a fountain not once but three times was even worse.

"Do not bother to wait up," Francine smirked as she closed the door behind her.

"When do I ever?" Aretha mumbled to herself as she leaned back against the wall her bed was pushed against. She closed her eyes and revelled in the silence of her Francine-less dorm room until the shrill shout of, "_Mes amies!_" came from outside her window.

Cursing her curiosity, Aretha got off the bed and raised the blinds of the one window in the dorm. Luckily for Aretha's nosiness, this window happened to look out on the parking lot. It was beginning to get dark out, with the light posts placed sporadically across the parking lot just now starting to flicker on as Aretha watched Francine greet a small group of four other girls.

Three of the girls were wearing pink leather jackets identical to Francine's while the other, a short redhead with a medium length pixie cut, was wearing a dark red halter top and jeans. Aretha was able to recognise two of the girls in pink: the pale girl with her white hair in a long braid wearing tiny jean shorts was Gillian Beillschmidt, who was known for being loud, obnoxious, and (to quote the girl herself) awesome; the other, a tanned brunette with long curly hair and a short black skirt, was Anita Fernandez Carriedo, a very laid back Spanish-born girl who only had eyes for tomatoes and her sometimes-girlfriend, Lovina Vargas, the Italian girl in the dark red halter top. The last girl…

Aretha blinked, and pressed her face further against the window pane. Was that Ali? Since when did Ali hang out with Francine and her ladies?

No, wait, that wasn't Ali, Aretha thought, shaking her head subconsciously. Ali's hair was much shorter, and Ali would be bouncing all over the parking lot, not just meekly standing there…

Aretha made a face as she watched France skip up to Anita and kiss her on both cheeks before sneaking in a quick grope. While Anita did not appear to notice the other girl groping her, Lovina did, and attempted to kick the French girl. Aretha hissed in sympathy when the Italian girl missed by a scant few inches. Unaffected by the petite redhead's hostility, Francine flounced off to greet Gillian and Ali-but-not-Ali in a similar manner. Francine laughed at something Ali-but-not-Ali said and Gillian threw a friendly arm around the meeker girl's shoulders; Anita was meanwhile attempting to hold Lovina's hand, but the girl kept trying to push her away. Aretha quickly found herself growing bored with the scene before her as the five girls stood around in the parking lot chatting, so she stepped away from the window and sat down on her bed again.

After rummaging through the top drawer of her bedside table, Aretha pulled out her much-loved _Sense and Sensibility _and sighed happily. She peered at the clock on the wall near the door. Five after nine. Five after nine on a Friday night, and she was in her dorm, alone, reading a Jane Austin novel.

Yes, life according to Aretha Kirkland was good.

Sometime past page sixty, Aretha became acutely aware of very loud music coming from the floor above her; if she had to give the music a genre other than trash, she would have labelled it insane-black-death-metal-of-doom-that-no-refined-person-would-bother-to-listen-to. (Aretha conveniently forgot about that summer between her senior year of high school and her first year at college during which she joined a punk rock band, pierced her tongue, and got a tattoo.) Rather than throw a fit and storm up to the next floor to share a piece of her mind with the person who was playing that Goddamned music, Aretha decided it would be best if she stuck to her absolutely invincible British gentlewoman ways and stayed in her dorm and calmly continued reading her novel.

This plan lasted for all of three pages.

Aretha slammed her book down on the bedside table and huffed, shooting a glare upwards. She got up from her bed and crossed the room, pulling her blond hair back into a ponytail. Making sure to leave her door ajar, as it automatically locked when it was closed and she had left her key sitting on the bedside table, Aretha stepped out into the hallway and stomped down the hallway to the stairwell. She slammed the door to the stairs behind her.

As the door slammed shut, a thin brunette with meticulously pin-curled shoulder-blade length hair and glasses poked her head from the dorm across from Aretha's. Rosalind Edelstein "tsk"ed disapprovingly at the unnecessary noise and looked up and down the hallway, vaguely interested in finding out who the offender was, when she noticed that the door across from her wasn't completely shut. Shaking her head at the irresponsibility of the people living across from her, Rosalind briskly strode out of her dorm and, out of the goodness of her heart, firmly closed the door before returning to her room.

On the landing to the second floor, Aretha pushed open the door and strode down the hall, noticing with irritation that the music grew much louder as she continued down the hall. Despite this fact, however, she could not precisely pinpoint which dorm the insane death metal was coming from. Picking the room she figured was most directly over her own, Aretha forcefully knocked on the door and stood back, her arms crossed over her chest in a decidedly no-nonsense fashion.

The door opened and Aretha could feel the blood drain out of her face.

The girl who stood in the doorway had to be at least six feet tall, more than half a foot taller than Aretha, and was quite possibly one of the scariest people she had ever encountered. Her blond hair was parted down the middle and pulled into two twin braids while her fringe just barely brushed the top of her glasses. She was wearing a modest white blouse tucked into a dark blue tulip skirt and she held a book entitled "_Män som hatar kvinnor_" in one of her hands. While she certainly wasn't as wide or as burly as some of the other girls her height, just the look on her face intimidated the hell out of Aretha.

Aretha opened her mouth but nothing came out, and she closed it again. The other girl raised an eyebrow, further increasing her scariness level, and Aretha allowed her self-righteous anger to push herself out of her shocked state.

"Do you have any idea how loud your music is?" she demanded, placing her hands on her hips as she let her voice slip into its lecture tone. "You had better turn it down immediately before I report you to the RA! Some people are trying to do very important things like read books or do their homework or sleep or forget about their perverted roommate or ignore scary upstairs neighbours or-"

"'s not m' mus'c."

"I-Um, pardon me, what did you say?"

"'s not m' musi'c," the girl repeated slowly, her accent making a garbled mess of her words. Aretha strained her ears to understand the girl. "'s m'wife's."

"Oh." Aretha couldn't help but to blush at the other girl's wording. "Is, uh, your wife in the room with you?"

The girl shook her head and pointed to the dorm directly across the hall. "T'na's'n th' d'rm o'er there."

"Oh. Thank you, and excuse me for the interruption,."

The girl nodded and closed the door.

Aretha turned on her heel and walked to the other door. At first she knocked politely, most of her righteous anger all used up, but after failing to gain the attention of anyone inside the dorm, she knocked harder. It was not until she was nearly pounding the door in that someone finally answered, the music becoming unbearably loud as it spilled into the hallway. The girl who opened was also a blonde with glasses, but she was much shorter and not quite as intimidating.

"Are you Tina?" Aretha asked, remembering to put her hands on her hips and look cross. The girl looked at her blankly.

"One second," she said in a slight accent. It sounded similar to the Russian teacher's assistant's in Economics, but much softer. Aretha watched as she pulled out two earplugs from her ears. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Uh… Would you happen to be Tina?"

"No, but I'll get her for you."

The girl replaced her earplugs and called into the room for Tina to "stop writhing around like that and get to the door." For possibly the second time in the last five minutes, Aretha was regretting her decision to come up and bitch at whoever was playing the music (she was pretty sure the first time was when she met the tall girl across the hallway): who knew what kind of delinquent liked such violent music?

No sooner had Aretha prepared herself to run away screaming than Tina arrived at the door, completely shocking the British girl: Tina was a tiny blonde, only a little shorter than herself, and wore her hair down, with the fringe swept to the side. Despite the fact that her dark eye makeup was smeared, her hair was a mess, and she was wearing tight, ripped, black clothing, Aretha was quite positive she had never met anyone who seemed so harmless. (Even so, she had to worry for the girl's taste in music.)

"Oh, hello!" the girl said cheerfully, sweeping a few strands of her light blond hair out of her face. "I've never met you before; is there anything I can help you with?"

"Um, hello, I'm Aretha Kirkland. I'm in the dorm beneath yours, and I wanted to talk to you about your, ah, music."

"Oh!" The girl quickly ran into the room and soon the foreign heavy death metal was turned off. The girl returned looking very sheepish. "Sorry about that! I was really stressed today after class and I wanted to unwind, so I came over here to Eliisabet's since Berit looks so scary where she's interrupted by music, and I guess I got carried away. I'm sorry it was disturbing y- no, Hanatamago, get back here!"

Aretha jumped back from the doorway as a small fluffy thing darted out, Tina taking off down the hall after it. Her mouth opened in shock as the small blonde girl leapt and tackled the little while fluff ball, wincing in sympathy as the girl further ripped her jeans during her spectacular tackle. Tina pulled herself off the ground and turned to walk back to the dorm, panting and softly scolding the small fluff ball in a foreign language. Although the thing was squirming in her arms, it looked strangely remorseful nonetheless.

As Tina came to a stop in front of Aretha, facing her dorm, Aretha couldn't keep herself from staring and asking, "Is that a dog?"

Tina looked up in terror at the question, clutching the little dog to her chest.

"I didn't know dogs were allowed in the dorms."

"Please don't tell the RA!" Tina said, tears welling up in her dark blue eyes. "Berit and I have worked to hard to keep Hanatamago a secret, and we even had to swear Eliisabet to secrecy since she's my best friend, and I think Berit scared a freshman on the first floor into silence. We can't let her go again! She means so much to me, and the pound's threatened to put her down if they see her on the streets again! You won't tell anyone, will you?

Aretha looked Tina in the eyes and opened her mouth to say "Rules are rules" when she noticed that the very scary girl from earlier had opened her door and was actively glaring down at her. Squeaking quietly under the glare, Aretha quickly stammered, "I didn't see anything!"

Tina gave her a bright smile, the tears in her eyes already gone. "Oh thank you! I promise I'll keep the Suomirock down!"

The scary girl stopped glaring at Aretha and sent a slightly fond, but mostly blank and still frightening, look towards the small blonde in front of her, placing a hand on the Tina's head. Tina looked up and smiled.

"Hey, Berit! I didn't know you were there!"

"M'wife," Berit said in lieu of a proper response, leaning down to kiss Tina on her forehead. The girl blushed, but tilted her head upwards to meet the taller girl's lips in a chaste kiss.

"…not your wife," Tina said when they parted, and Aretha blushed, ignoring but the intimacy and the fact that she could practically touch the "yet" that was lurking at the end of Tina's sentence. Feeling that her monthly quota of witnessing other people's happy-couple-moments had already been reached two weeks earlier when she was in the same room as Filipina and Toria, Aretha quickly said her goodbyes and hurried off down the hall toward the stairs.

As she was passing the last dorm before the stairs, the door swung open and someone was shoved out, slamming into Aretha and nearly knocking them down. A loud, "And, like, stay out!" was shouted as the dorm's door was banged shut once more.

"Get the bloody hell off me," she cursed loudly, trying to disentangle the unknown idiot's arms from around her. It was as she took in a large whiff of lavender mixed with the smell of hamburgers and Coke the she realised that this idiot could very well be her American idiot. Er. She meant _the_ American idiot, not _her._ Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the person's shirt, a large tee with the phrase "Built Ford Tough" stamped across the front. Much to her embarrassment, Aretha could tell the American wasn't wearing a bra. Again.

…_Why was she even noticing?_

It was with a vague sense of déjà vu that Aretha looked up into Ali F. Jones' grinning face.

"Oh my gosh, Aretha, is that you?" the girl gushed, pulling in a struggling smaller blonde for a hug. "It's been such a long time since we last saw each other! Did you pass your midterms? You seem like the sort of dull geek who'd be worried about something like that… But what are you doing up here? Did your roommate lock you out again? You can stay with me again, cuz my roomie's out again. She stays out pretty late when she does go out. I'm pretty sure she told me where she was going, but I can't quite remember…huh. Oh my gosh, you're wearing my stuff! You look so adorable!"

Aretha pushed Ali off of her and crossed her arms. "You git, no I do not need a room tonight. I am not your damsel in distress." Aretha looked at Ali's expectant face and sighed, resigning herself to a conversation with the girl. "What are you doing up here?"

"Me? I'm trying to find someone to watch this movie with me," she said, waving around a DVD copy of _The Blair Witch Project_. "First I tried Eliisabet's door, but no one answered. I don't think she could hear me over the music, and besides, if I had invited Eliise, then it'd be rude not to invite Tina, and everyone knows Tina doesn't go anywhere without Berit, and to be honest, Berit really scares the hell out of me, and I do not want to watch a scary movie while in the same room as Berit. I wanted to go ask Kiku, but she's out of town visiting her roommate's family. So then I thought I should try Alejandra's room, but then I remembered that I hate Alejandra. Anyway, then I tried asking Toria, she sleeps over there," she waved at the dorm she had just gotten thrown out of, "but then Filipina when batshit crazy on me, telling me that," she adopted a nasally voice in vague impression of the girl in question, "if I, like, even think about touching Toria inappropriately, she's going to, like, totally make Warsaw my capital! Ha! Make Warsaw my capital? What the hell does that even mean? And besides, if she's worried that I'm going to steal her girlfriend, she's even crazier that I first thought."

Ali paused, and turned to look at Aretha, who had been trying to inconspicuously sneak away during the taller girl's rant.

"Do you know what I just realised?"

"Pray tell."

"It's like everyone in this building is a lesbian!" Aretha snorted. "No, I'm serious! Can you think of anyone here who is undeniably straight?"

Aretha ignored the warmth in her stomach that had sparked up when it was clear that Ali didn't consider herself 'undeniably straight.' "What about Holly? The girl with the scar over her eyebrow?"

Ali shook her head. "She's a total cougar. The boys she goes after are young enough to look and sound like girls. Doesn't count."

"Isn't Eliisabet dating the TA for Economics?"

"Who, Keesa? No one knows if they're serious. Besides, Eliise had that really brief thing with Eydis near the beginning of the semester."

"Well, I know for a fact that Rosalind is head over heals for Elias."

"And I know for a fact that she and Verena Zwingli were pretty serious all throughout high school."

"Verena? I could have sworn that she and Marcello were together. Whenever my perverted roommate would try to convince her to go out for a drink, she would always say that she had a study date with him…"

"Yeah, to study. She's always been crazy for his statistics work, especially when it involves money." Ali flashed a victorious grin at Aretha. "See what I mean? The whole building's filled with lesbians!"

"No need to act like you're right about everything," Aretha muttered, inching toward the door to the stairs.

"But I am right! The hero is always right, and since I'm the heroine, I'm always right, and- Hey, wait, come back!"

Aretha had entered the stairwell and was descending, having determined that no matter how cute the American idiot may appear while she's ranting, she's still obnoxious. Wait. What? "I'm going back to my room so I can finish reading _Sense and Sensibility_."

"Sense and what? Sounds boring," Ali said, following her down the stairs and onto the first floor. "Hey, I know! You should totally watch _The Blair Witch Project_ with me!"

"Tempting, but…no."

The two had Aretha's door, and the smaller blond didn't look away from Ali as she reached forward to push the door open. However, her hand met solid resistance, and she looked away from the American to frown at the door. "What the hell?" she muttered, jiggling the doorknob though she knew it to be futile.

"What's wrong?"

"Bloody door's locked."

"Well, don't you have a key?"

"If I had the key with me, I wouldn't be standing out here in the middle of the fucking hallway!" Aretha suddenly kicked the door. Most unfortunately for her, the door was made out of a solid wood, and she ended up doing more damage to her foot than to the door.

Ali hissed in sympathy, over both the situation and Aretha's sure-to-be-bruised foot. "Tough luck. So…do you need a room for tonight now?"

"If I were you, I'd shut the bloody hell up _right now_."

Ali only laughed. "Looks like you _are_ my damsel in distress tonight! Luckily for you, your heroine is here to save you! Come on!" Then, without looking back at Aretha, Ali turned on her heel and began walking toward the dorm Aretha remembered to be hers.

Aretha stayed where she was for only a couple of moments, fuming, before heaving a sigh. She knew Francine was likely to stay out until dawn, and she would really rather not sleep out in the hallway. Slowly, she followed Ali into the dorm.

Ali's side of the room was as messy as usual; in fact, Aretha could have sworn that the assorted bras, socks, and burger wrappers were in the same place as they were two weeks ago. The only aspects of the room that seemed to be different was that there was a pile of pillows and a blue-with-white-stars comforter in the aisle between the two beds, and there was a box of half-eaten pepperoni pizza sitting on Ali's bed next to her laptop. Aretha awkwardly closed the door behind her as the taller blonde flopped down onto her nest of starry bedding, waking up the laptop and inserting the DVD. She looked over to Aretha.

"What are you doing just standing there? Turn off the lights and c'mon!" As Aretha turned out the lights, she reached behind her and pulled the comforter and pillows off the meticulously made bed behind her. The British girl carefully picked her way across the room and sat in the pile of softness a fair distance away from Ali.

"So what is this movie about?" Aretha asked, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her arms on them.

"You haven't seen it either? Well, I think my roommate said it explains it in the beginning…Why are you sitting so far away? I bet you can't even see the screen!"

Aretha yelped as Ali reached across the distance and tugged her closer. Unable (rather, unwilling) to protest with anything harsher than a, "You didn't have to pull so hard," Aretha found herself sitting almost uncomfortably close to the other girl, who was staring at her in a decidedly disconcerting manner and knocking their knees together.

"Hey Artie," she whispered, leaning in close to Aretha as the credits began to play on the laptop screen. Annoyingly, Aretha could feel her heartbeat speed up and blood rush to her face in a furious blush.

"W-what?" she whispered back, leaning forward subconsciously.

"Do you want a piece of pizza?"

Aretha stared at the piece of pizza Ali was now waving in front of her face, a tick developing beneath her eye as a lump of greasy cheese and pepperoni slid off the slice and onto one of the comforters. "No thanks," she muttered, turning back to the screen.

"Suit yourself," she heard Ali say through a mouthful of pizza.

The British girl frowned as the explanation of the movie flashed across the screen, though she didn't bother to read it; she was too busy watching Ali out of the corner of her eye. The girl had stopped chewing, and though her mouth was (thankfully) closed, her eyes were wide open, the light from the screen playing against her cheeks and glasses; her messy blond hair was tucked behind her ears except for the errant bang that stood straight up. She was leaning forward, elbows braced on her crossed legs, and Aretha could tell that already she was shaking.

It was adorable, in an absolutely obnoxious way.

The smaller blonde increased the intensity of her glare and leaned back against the bed. She was an absolutely invincible English gentlewoman, and absolutely invincible English gentlewomen did _not_ develop crushes on loud, obnoxious, tall, gorgeous, er, ditzy, blonde, American girls!

Ali yelped and grabbed at Aretha's hand.

"There's something out there!" she squeaked in terror, pointing at the woods in the shot on the screen as she tried to hide behind Aretha's shoulder.

Well, fuck, Aretha thought as a heavy blush darkened her cheeks. It was only about fifteen minutes into the movie, and if Ali kept this up throughout the entire film, Aretha was sure she was going to have a ruptured blood vessel in her cheeks due to intense blushing.

There goes all hope of me denying this being a crush, she thought as Ali snuggled closer in terror. Because while absolutely invincible English gentlewomen did _not _develop crushes on loud, etc. etc., American girls, they most certainly would never _ever_ allow themselves to live a life of denial. So Aretha sighed, and scooted down some more to let Ali hide her face in her shoulder.

-u-

Aretha had to admit, this movie was getting pretty creepy.

She wasn't, by anyone's standards, _scared_, but if she was being completely honest, there would be chance in hell that she was going into the woods anytime soon.

The two gits (there had been another in the beginning, but apparently he had been eaten, or something) had just decided that going into the abandoned house in the middle of the woods was a _brilliant_ idea, and one of the gits, the boy, claimed to hear his idiot friend screaming, and was about to go up the stairs when-

The dorm's door opened.

Ali screamed.

"IT'S THE BLAIR WITCH!" she shrieked, trying to climb into Aretha's lap while simultaneously groping around on the floor for something. She managed to grab the case for the DVD and chucked it at the dark silhouette in the doorway.

"W-what did you do that for, Ali?" the shadow yelped, rubbing its head.

"THE BLAIR WITCH KNOWS MY NAME!"

Aretha watched in shocked silence as the figure groped around the wall near the doorframe. Within seconds, the light was turned on, revealing a girl with long, wavy blond hair wearing a pink leather jacket, jeans, and a frown.

"No, you idiot, it's me, Madeleine."

"MADDIE! I thought you were the Blair Witch!" Ali greeted, a broad grin spreading across her face even as she continued to shiver.

"I noticed. Who are you sitting on this time? …She looks rather uncomfortable."

"Hmm?" Ali looked down and seemed to, for the first time, notice that she was sitting in the other girl's lap. She crawled off to sit on her knees facing the doorway. "Maddie, this is my new friend Artie. Artie, this is my roomie Maddie."

"It's Aretha," she said, shooting a glare at Ali, but standing to shake Maddie's hand. "Pleasure. Did Francine come back with you?"

Maddie frowned and opened her mouth to say something but was cut off when another person jumped in from the hallway and latched onto her back, thoroughly groping her chest. Ali let out another strangled shriek about the Blair Witch and hid under one of the comforters, but Maddie seemed to handle the situation with much more composure.

"G-Gillian!" she exclaimed, reaching up to pry the hands from her breasts. "What are you doing?"

"Invading your vital regions with my awesomeness, my dear Madeleine!"

"Are you going to let go anytime soon?"

"Why would the awesome me do anything as unawesome as that?"

"Thought not."

Maddie finally managed to extract the other girl's hands so that they were merely loosely wrapped around her waist with her chin resting on Maddie's shoulder. Aretha gave Gillian Beillschmidt an unimpressed look; while she didn't often hang out with Francine and her ladies, she was still exposed to them enough to be unsurprised by any sudden acts of pervertedness. In return, the white-haired girl stuck her tongue out at her. Maddie noticed the attention her friend was giving to the other girl and turned to Aretha.

"As I was saying, sorry, Francine didn't come back with us. She was trying to chat up Michel the last time I checked," she added bitterly. Giving Aretha a suspicious look, she added, "Why?"

"She's my roommate, and…I accidentally locked myself out of our dorm."

Ali seemed to have recovered by then. "Yeah! I invited her to stay here since she didn't have anywhere else. I thought you were gonna be out later, Maddie…"

Gillian suddenly perked up, tightening her hold on the blond girl in her arms. "Well Maddie can stay with me and Liesl tonight since I'm so awesome and it would do Maddie good to get away from your unawesomeness."

Ali wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, Maddie, I can't believe you hang out with this albino creep!"

Before Gillian could say anything, Maddie frowned at her roommate and said, "Don't make fun of my friends, Ali. I don't make fun of yours, no matter how loud, obnoxious, and drunk Maren is. I hope you and Aretha have a nice time finishing your movie; I'll be on the second floor in Gillian and Liesl's room if you need me." Maddie turned to exit, Gillian still attached to her back, when she gave Aretha a look. "Don't let her scream too loud; some people are trying to sleep."

Aretha tried her best not to blush as Gillian gave her a wink when she closed the door. She turned to Ali, who was sitting on the floor, surrounded in comforters and pillows. Ali gave her a grin and a thumbs up.

"Ready to finish that movie?"

-u-

When Aretha woke up the next morning with her legs tangled with another girl's for the second time in her life, she didn't freak out nearly as badly as she did two weeks ago. But she still freaked out.

-u-

(In my headcanon, the fem!BadTouchTrio would be like the Pink Ladies from _Grease_.)

NEVILLE! What are you doing? Why are you focusing on Aretha's interactions with random characters and not on Aretha and Ali's relationship? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just trying to build up her character is all! I promise I'll attempt more lovely fem!slash for you in the next story, alright? But that might be awhile…You see, summer is coming to an end and I have yet to finish my summer assignments, and I'm trying out for Iceland for the APHWC on You Tube (even though I know I won't get in), and-and-and…-sobs in emo corner-

…I need more sleep and less summer assignments. Um. I'm only just starting French III, so my bad if the small amount of French here is incorrect. ("_Mon petit lapin_" should be "my little rabbit," while "_tu n'es pas très adorable quand tu es jalouse"_ should be "you are not very charming when you're jealous." Basically, just France being full of herself.) If I'm wrong…uh…Laugh at my incompetence but skip over it?

(Now I'm in love with both my fem!Poland and fem!Romano. Thought you should know. Also, you guys just witnessed my first fem!slash kiss. Be porud of me, even if it didn't involve either of the main characters.)


	3. Gillian, Interrupted

**Author's Note: **You guys can't tell, but I'm totally sobbing tears of joy right now because of the awesomeness of all your reviews; like, I'm in serious danger of being electrocuted because my keyboard is so wet. No lie. (Okay, slight lie.) But this chapter/ story/ whatever is going to be a bit different due mainly to the fact that it is, in all honesty, a filler chapter. It will have little to nothing to do with Aretha and Ali's budding romance. It was merely written because I am a sucker for back-stories and Prussia. Especially Prussia. Goodness, do I love Prussia… As a note, from here on out if the chapter's title is a play on words of a horror movie's title, it will be about Ali and Aretha; if the chapter's title is a play on words of the title of a movie from any other genre, it is for all intents and purposes filler. So there you go. (Also, I dare you to count how many times the word awesome, including awesomeness, awesomely, and unawesome, pops up, including the author's notes.)

**Disclaimer:** Ils ne sont pas de moi. …Wait, what?

**Playlist:** "Dreaming of You" by _The Coral_, "Just Friends" by _Prozzak, _and any Canadian indie band that sings of angsty, unrequited love. (Whaaat? That is sooo not a foreshadowing of things to come…)

**Note on Names:** (to be added on to from previous chapters) The Roman Empire is Ms. Vargas (because I am one lazy son of a biscuit) and Fritz is Frederick II of Prussia (because that dude was far too awesome to genderbend; I'm sorry).

-u-

The music was loud and outdated to the point of cavemen being bored to death, the constantly changing lights coupled with the mirrored ball hanging from the ceiling were seizure-inducing, and the amount of happy couples in the rink was nauseating. I watched from the barrier separating the carpeted floor from the rink, sipping at my bottle of cream soda as Anita passed me, laughing happily as she pulled her frowning and blushing girlfriend after her. The song changed from something about a carwash to another song about being on fire, and I wondered (not for the first time) why the hell the awesome me was gracing my awesome presence on such an unawesome place as this.

I don't know how (or why), but Francine had somehow managed to sucker the entire group into going to a skating rink on roller disco night. I mean, Anita had probably blissfully said yes to the French girl without fully understanding what was going on, and had probably bribed Lovina on a date with the promise of tomatoes and churros. But me? All Francine had told me was that we were going somewhere awesome and that I would totally love it. (For the record, roller disco is _not_ awesome and I was _not_ loving it.) And Maddie? Well…Maddie never could say no to Francine.

Francine and Madeleine's relationship had never been much of a secret.

Well, maybe they were to Anita, who was always too wrapped up in her needy and violent on-and-off girlfriend to take notice or interest in the relationships of those around her. And maybe they were a secret to the rest of the school, but the rest of the school didn't count because a) no one spent very much time around Francine if they could help it, and b) everyone, for some reason, always seemed to forget about Maddie. Also, no one's nearly as awesome as I am.

What I'm trying to say is that Francine and Maddie's entire relationship had never been much of a secret to me.

Francine, Anita, and I go way back. We met in our eighth grade gym class, but only really started hanging out after the three of us beat the rest of the class (including my pompous, unawesome cousin and her boyfriend, who she totally stole from me; serves her right he broke up with her before high school) in a pretty intense and awesome game of dodgeball. Around the middle of the year, someone got the brilliant idea to call us the Bad Touch Trio (which I totally blame Francine and her pervertedness for) and the name stuck. Honestly, I would have preferred we be called the Gillian Beillschmidt Gang, or the Alpha Super Awesome Cool Dynamite Wolf Squadron, or, at the very least, the Bad _Ass_ Trio, but the name we got wasn't _totally_ unawesome. Anyway, we stuck together that year, and the year after that, and then the next three years, and then we found ourselves in college, with Francine going for a major in fashion design and a minor in French literature, Anita headed for an engineering degree, and me just along for the ride. Since I didn't have much of a game plan for college (the awesome me doesn't need to plan for the future!), Francine managed to convince me to take a culinary class with her during the first semester of our sophomore year; she had tried asking Anita, too, but our other friend was booked with all of her math and science classes.

On the first day of class, we were late; Francine had been trying to sneak her very male visitor out of the girls' dormitory without alerting the RA or her uptight English roommate, and I had been laughing my ass off at her. While we were lucky that the teacher, a laid back Italian woman by the name of Ms. Vargas, didn't seem to care very much that we were late and had continued to go over the syllabus like nothing had happened, there were no spaces left open in the room except for a table occupied by a very lonely blond girl. Francine didn't seem to take notice of the girl, and stood looking around in disappointment until I began walking toward the table in the back; sure the girl didn't look very awesome, sitting in the back all alone, but I've always had a sort of soft spot for loners. I dropped my books in the empty space next to her, and told her that, "My awesome self is going to sit here from now on." She looked up in surprise, staring at me with gorgeous wide, purple eyes from behind her glasses before she stuttered out, "Y-you can see me?" I had just laughed and sat down, and by that time Francine had followed me to the table in the back. "Gillian," she had said, flipping her hair over shoulder, "'ow did you find these seats? I thought this class was completely booked!" I was about to say something along the lines of how awesome I was when I heard a small squeak come from beside me; I turned saw that the lonely blond girl was blushing and staring at Francine. I could practically see little hearts in her eyes. Grinning, I leaned back to give to give the girl a better view of Francine, and said to her, "By the way, I'm the awesome Gillian Beillschmidt, and this is Francine Bonnefoy." The blonde blushed darker, twirling a long strand of her curly hair and said, "I'm Madeleine Williams."

Maddie fit in wonderfully with our small group. She was brilliant and had a surprising bad-girl streak going for her. She got along wonderfully with Anita, and somehow managed to get Lovina to not hate her. One way or another, she got Francine to settle down when it came to flirting (which was a pretty epic accomplishment for anyone, even someone as cute as Maddie). And, most importantly, she became my awesome best friend. Whenever she wasn't with Francine, or in class, or maybe sleeping, she was hanging out with me. We played video games in my dorm, crashed my sister's slumber parties with Feliciana, the nicer (and more ditzy) Vargas twin, and went on late night IHOP runs. Eventually, she was able to tutor me enough so that I didn't completely fail the culinary course, and she suggested I take veterinary classes after I told her about my colony of Gillian-birds at home. I found myself feeling very unawesome feelings that I had not felt since before my asshole cousin stole my boyfriend; I used lame excuses to brush or play with Maddie's hair, and I began looking for crap reasons to hug her. I'd feel weirdly jealous whenever she and Francine had a "just-friends" date, and, most unawesomely of all, I began thinking up lists of why the two shouldn't be left alone together.

By midterms, Francine had an A without even having to sleep with the professor, Maddie had a high B, and the two of them were dating. All I had was a C minus and a crush on my new best friend, who happened to be my other best friend's girlfriend.

I had no idea what to do. While technically, it was the first time the awesome me had crushed on girl (I had thought my eighth-grade boyfriend was a girl for the first couple of weeks we were dating), I wasn't too concerned; I was of the belief that _everybody_ could use a little more of the awesome me in their life. What really had my conscious hung up was that she was _my best friend's girl_. I know a lot of people consider me to be loud, obnoxious, and totally uncaring, but I knew how unawesome it would have been to both of them if I had tried anything on Maddie. So, I ignored it as best as possible, and tried to keep on being my normal awesome self, despite the fact that I knew that my normal awesome self would fight for what she wanted.

The rest of the semester flew by not-quite-awesomely, with Francine and Maddie becoming more sickeningly lovey-dovey by the day, Anita making strides in PDA with Lovina, and me just along for the ride. Again.

But, like my uncle Fritz used to say all the time when he wasn't teaching me fighting moves, the bigger the empire, the harder the fall. The Bad Touch Trio's empire (we were too awesome to be anything but an empire) came pretty close to falling the first week of our second semester in sophomore year.

Over the winter break, Maddie moved back to Canada to be with her family, and Francine moved into an apartment with a friend I had never met; I spent about half the break with Francine, and the other half with Liesl and our parents. Overall, it was a pretty boring vacation, and even though Maddie texted and called me pretty often, I missed her to the point of it being totally unawesome to admitting how much. Near the end of the break, I had resorted to drifting around the small town around the college, and generally lazing about and not doing my class reading. One night, I decided to drop by Francine's place uninvited.

I walked in on her with someone. Someone who definitely wasn't Maddie.

I walked out before she or the boy she was with noticed. A year ago, I would have started laughing loudly about Francine's inability to keep it in her pants (or, rather, _out_ of her pants), but at that point, all I could think of was how unfair and unawesome Francine was being to my Maddie. I spent the rest of the night staring at my phone, wondering if I should tell Maddie or not. I'm not sure whether the decision was awesome or not, but I decided to leave the issue up to them. For all I knew, maybe this was the only time Francine had cheated on Maddie.

Francine, Anita, and I all moved back into the dorms within the first week that campus was open to students. Maddie texted me when her parents dropped her off, sometime in the early afternoon a couple of days before classes officially started. She gave me a really tight hug when I ran out to greet her, which was pretty awesome, but she looked kind of disappointed. When I asked her about it, she said that she had texted Francine, too, but hadn't seen her yet. I began to get this unawesome and bad feeling in my stomach, but I ignored it, and helped her bring her surprisingly small amount of things up to her room. As we passed Francine's dorm, I noticed that her roommate, an unawesome and cranky (unless drunk) English girl named Aretha, was sitting by the door, frowning, and typing on a mini laptop. I also noticed that there was a bra hanging off the handle of the door.

After Maddie and I had finished putting up her stuff in her dorm, we had walked down the hallway to Francine's room, Maddie chattering the whole time about how excited she was to see her girlfriend while my stomach kept sinking. Just as I opened my mouth to suggest that we try back later, Maddie twisted the doorknob and threw the door open. My heart broke at the look on her face as she stuttered in shock, "F-Francine?" Francine, naked under a dark-skinned boy in his boxers, had looked straight at Maddie and asked, "_Qui_?" Maddie had taken off down the hallway, and I only paused long enough to tell Francine what an unawesome bitch she was being before I followed her.

Maddie didn't talk to any of the Bad Touch Trio for a month. I texted her every day, and left countless voice messages on her phone. When she did started to talking to us again, it was very gradual; she barely made eye contact with Anita and I, and she didn't even both trying to talk to Francine. Eventually, purely through my own awesomeness, she began hanging out with us again, and she had only just recently agreed to go out for a night with us.

The first Bad Touch Trio night out with Maddie in nearly two months, and Francine chose to take us to disco night at a roller rink. Definitely not awesome.

-u-

I sighed and looked around for somewhere to put my now-empty bottle, spotting a recycling bin near the tables by the snack bar. I carefully made my way over, only tripping one or three times (I was an awesome skater, it was just the skates' fault that I was doing so unawesomely), and tossed the bottle in before sitting down at the closest table. Letting my head drop onto the hard and slightly sticky surface of the table, I groaned loudly. The horrible music continued to play, and the horrible strobe effects continued to make my head pound, and the horrible mirrored ball continued to ask me to shoot it down with a well aimed skate, and I began wondering why exactly I wasn't gone by then when I realized I wasn't the only person at the table. I turned my head to face the person and felt a grin spread across my face when I recognized the person's face.

"Maddie!" I cried over the music, sitting up and scooting my chair closer so I could throw my arm over her shoulders. She turned to look at me, raising an eyebrow as she popped another fry in her mouth. I stole a fry before asking, "What are you doing sitting back here all alone?"

She made a face, and slid the basket of fries out of my reach. "What have I told you about stealing my food?"

"To not to. But you're avoiding my question. Do you know how unawesome that is of you, considering that you're supposed to be my very awesome best friend?"

"Forgive me, O Awesome Gillian," Maddie said, rolling her eyes as she leaned back in her chair. To my delight, she also happened to be leaning further into my arm. The night was getting steadily more awesome. I reached forward and nabbed another fry, mumbling a, "forgiven" at the look she gave me. She crossed her legs under the table and folded her arms. When she sighed, I poked her cheek, causing her to look at me.

"I'm serious, Maddie, I can't even hope to have a good night in such an unawesome place as this if I know my best friend is in the corner, alone and sulking. Please tell the Awesome Gillian what's wrong?" I dropped my arm from around her shoulders and placed my chin on her shoulder. Without thinking, I reached up and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. Then I cursed internally because _dammit_, she was with me when I saw _Zombieland_, and she was sure to know what that action meant…

"Francine's my problem," Maddie said so suddenly I jerked up to look directly at her only to find that she was staring intensely at the snack bar. I followed her stare and saw Francine leaning over the counter, no doubt flaunting her cleavage, flirting with the boy behind the counter. I realized, and I'm sure Maddie did too, it was the boy was the same one she had caught Francine cheating on her with.

"Forget about her, she's a whore," I said after a while, letting my chin drop on her shoulder again.

"She's your- our friend," she reprimanded, sounding slightly amused. She added with a heartrending sigh, "And I can't."

I straightened, and grabbed her shoulders, turning around so she was facing me. "I know I've told you this before, but—"

"I'm too awesome for her, I know," she finished, giving me a small smile that made my heart skip a beat. I mumbled a "damn straight" and leaned against her, turning my attention to the skaters on the rink; some of them were attempting some totally unawesome disco moves and I laughed at their lameness. Maddie continued eating her fries, but she had moved the basket over so that it was between us. After a while, I sat up and stretched.

"I think we should leave," I announced. Maddie looked at me, cocking her head.

"Why?"

"Are you having a very awesome time?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"Not in the least." I smiled triumphantly. "But I think it'd be a waste of money if we left before we at least tried skating."

"Aww, Maddie—"

"No, Gillian, I'm serious." She got up and skated over to the trash can, tossing out the empty fry basket. I watched her, slightly jealous that she was able to skate so well. She skated behind my chair and leaned over me, her glasses falling down her nose. "Is it because you can't skate?"

"I can skate! I can skate awesomely!" I said, reaching up to yank on the curl that stuck out from the rest of her hair. She grabbed my hand and laughed, pulling me to my feet. I nearly lost my balance and reached out with both hands to grab at Maddie's.

"Oh really?" she asked, skating backwards and pulling me after. I frowned and stuck my tongue out at her.

"Yes, really. I am beyond awesome on a skateboard!"

Maddie laughed and tugged me forward so that there was only a half-arm's length between us. "You're not on a skateboard now, Gillian." Smiling at me, she let go of one of my hands to brush her curl behind her ear. She might have been blushing, or it could have been the strobe lights fucking with my eyes when she said, "I could teach you…if you want."

"You consider yourself to be awesome enough of a skater to be able to teach me? You know I refuse to learn from anyone but the best."

She smiled again and began pulling me to the entrance of the rink. "I was on the coed ice hockey team all throughout high school, and I joined the summer league in Ottawa between freshman and this year. I could've gotten in anywhere in Canada on scholarship, but I really wanted to go here for the pharmaceutical courses. Ice skating's not the same as rollerblading, but most of the techniques and tricks are the same. So…you up for it?"

It was hard for me to say no to Maddie under any circumstance, but when she was standing there, holding my hands and blinking at me with a pleading look on her face, it was absolutely impossible.

"Fine," I sighed, pulling myself closer to her. "But only for one song, alright?"

-u-

Three songs later, I found Anita and managed to trade the keys to Liesl's four-door Sedan for Lovina's little red vespa (neither Maddie nor I were able to remember how we accomplished this), so Francine could get a ride back to the dorms if she needed it. We traded in our skates for our shoes, jackets, and purses, and headed out of the rink to the parking lot. The ride back to the campus, once I'd assured Maddie that I was an awesome vespa driver even though I'd never even been on one, was quite pleasant: the poor little scooter couldn't go over thirty-five, but Maddie must have thought it was going much faster because she always tightened her hold around my waist whenever I took a corner too sharp, and buried her face in my jacket when we were going down hills.

_Awesome._

Unfortunately for me, the skating rink wasn't more than fifteen minutes away from campus, even going on the slow little vespa, and before I was able to thoroughly enjoy the awesome position I was in with Maddie, I turned into our dorm's parking lot. After trying to determine where, exactly, the vespa was supposed to go, I ended up locking it to one of the lampposts with a bike lock I found in my purse (don't judge me) while Maddie tried to pull the tangles out of her hair with her fingers. Once the lock clicked, I slipped the keys to the lock and to the scooter into my purse and turned to my best friend.

"So," I said, bumping shoulders with her. "My room or yours?"

Maddie gave me an apologetic look as we began walking into the building. "I'm sorry, Gillian, but I really ought to stay in my dorm tonight. Ali had her heart set on watching some scary movie tonight, and you know how she gets when there isn't anyone with her..."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I really am sorry, Gilly..."

I heaved a sigh at the nickname she had given me earlier this year and swung an arm over her shoulders. We walked through the common area where my cousin's ex-best friend Verena was talking quietly on the payphone, probably to her little brother, and the loud Danish girl from the dorm next to me was losing spectacularly to the Dutch girl at foosball as her Norwegian roommate watched.

"Don't worry about it, Maddie. Though this does significantly reduce the awesomeness of my night, at least I was able to rescue us from the unawesomeness of disco night."

Maddie giggled and opened the door to the stairs. "Yes, thank you, Awesome Gillian. Without you, I surely would have perished from the horrible music."

"No doubt. You, my little Madeleine, are very lucky to have as awesome a best friend as myself."

"Yes," she said, leaning against me. "I am."

I blushed and actually managed to keep myself from talking (and probably ruining the moment) and instead tightened my arm around her.

We stayed like that up the stairs and halfway down the hall when I stopped, staring at my cousin's door. It had been far too long since I last pranked her… Maddie walked out from under my arm but turned to look at me in bemusement. I waved her onward, and said, "Go on, check on your scaredy-cat roommate. I'll be there in a minute to properly see you off for the night…but first, I need to leave an awesome gift for my darling cousin."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was smiling. "Fine, but don't go overboard this time."

"When do I ever?"

She snorted but turned and continued on her way to her dorm. I looked back at the door before me and rummaged in my purse, eventually pulling out cling wrap and a roll of clear tape (again, don't judge me). I had taped the first couple strips of cling wrap at about face level when I heard a shriek of "IT'S THE BLAIR WITCH!" come from near Maddie's dorm. I turned in time to see Maddie get hit in the forehead with a slim rectangular box and quickly began stuffing my effects back in my purse so I could awesomely swoop in to save my best friend from her idiot roommate.

"W-what did you do that for, Ali?" Maddie whined, rubbing her head. Her roommate shrieked again, and Maddie said, "No you idiot, it's me, Madeleine."

I made a sound of frustration as the cling wrap became too tangled up in itself for me to properly store it. Ripping it out of my purse and throwing it down in front of Rosalind's door, I began striding down the hallway, ready to protect my awesome little Maddie with all the fighting moves Fritz had ever taught me.

"MADDIE! I thought you were the Blair Witch!"

"I noticed. Who are you sitting on this time? …She looks rather uncomfortable."

"Hmm? Maddie, this is my new friend Artie. Artie, this is my roomie Maddie."

"It's Aretha," said a voice that I instantly recognized as Francine's roommate, which shocked me: the only time Aretha was pleasant was when she was passed out, drunk, or both. Preferably both. Why was Ali hanging with such a stick in the mud? "Pleasure. Did Francine come back with you?"

Before Maddie could respond, I pounced, landing on her back and wrapping my arms around her chest, ready to claim her as my own; I ended up groping her, which was totally not planned but awesome anyway. Maddie was…very perky, and I found it very hard to will myself to let go, so I didn't. While Ali let out another shriek about the Blair Witch, or something, Maddie made this cute little sound in the back of her throat when her breath hitched.

"G-Gillian!" she squeaked, reaching up to pull my hands down to her waist. "What are you doing?"

"Invading your vital regions with my awesomeness, my dear Madeleine!" I said, trying to play it off as best as possible.

"Are you going to let go anytime soon?"

"Why would the awesome me do anything as unawesome as that?"

"Thought not."

I grinned at my personal victory and rested my chin on Maddie's shoulder, my forearms resting just above her hipbones. I caught Aretha giving me this really prissy holier-than-thou look and in return I stuck my tongue out at her. Home girl didn't just have a stick up her ass; she had the entire Tower of London. Maddie seemed to notice our exchange because she turned back to the short girl.

"As I was saying, sorry, Francine didn't come back with us. She was trying to chat up Michel the last time I checked." I pouted at the bitterness in her voice and tried to bury my chin deeper into her shoulder as she added suspiciously, "Why?"

"She's my roommate, and…I accidentally locked myself out of our dorm."

Ali suddenly emerged from the comforter she had been hiding under. "Yeah! I invited her to stay here since she didn't have anywhere else. I thought you were gonna be out late, Maddie…"

I could feel a grin spread across my face as I straightened up, tightening my grip on the blond girl in my arms. "Well Maddie can stay with me and Liesl tonight since I'm so awesome and it would do Maddie good to get away from your unawesomeness!"

The taller blonde on the other side of the room wrinkled her nose at me. "Ugh, Maddie, I can't believe you hang out with this albino creep!"

Before I could say anything, Maddie surprised me by frowning at her roommate and saying softly by vehemently, "Don't make fun of my friends, Ali. I don't make fun of yours, no matter how loud, obnoxious, and drunk Maren is. I hope you and Aretha have a nice time finishing your movie; I'll be on the second floor in Gillian and Liesl's room if you need me." Maddie turned to leave but stopped to give Aretha a look. "Don't let her scream too loud; some people are trying to sleep."

I grinned widely at the possible double meaning and gave the furiously blushing Aretha a wink as I closed the door behind us. Once the door was closed, I moved to walk beside Maddie, though I was still draped all over her. "Aww, Maddie," I cooed, nuzzling my nose in her neck, "You stood up for me against your idiotic roommate and her cranky new girlfriend! That was so awesome of you!"

"I-it was nothing," she stuttered, and I could feel the skin of her neck begin to heat up. A comfortable silence fell as we entered the stairwell and began heading up to my floor. "Do you really think they're dating?" Maddie asked after a moment.

"Who, Idiot Girl Wonder and the Amazing Grouchy Lady? Not yet. They will be, but I'll bet you anything that Aretha is in denial and Ali hasn't even realized anything's happening. I guarantee you, she'll come running to you once she does realize something."

"Huh," Maddie said noncommittally as we stopped in front of my door. I rummaged in my purse again for the key to the dorm. There were the keys to the vespa and the bike lock, and there was the key to Maddie's room (she didn't know I'd had a copy made), and those two that opened the liquor cabinets at Anita and Francine's houses. There were a couple more whose purpose I couldn't identify, but I eventually found the one to my dorm, inserting it into the keyhole and opening the door.

"Ve, big sister Gillian is back!" I looked to the right and saw that my sister and her own best friend, Feliciana sitting on the bed. (Best friend was putting it lightly; they were nearly attached at the hip, and only a couple of signatures and a proposal away from being married.) Liesl was braiding Feliciana's long red hair, trying her very hardest to get the other girl to sit still long enough to pin down an errant curl. They were both in their pyjamas, Feliciana in a pink tank top and shorts, my sister in a very modest nightgown: my sister was possibly one of the most anal retentive I knew, except for my cousin. Now that I think about it, I'm the only one in my family to not be born with a stick up my ass; the awesome gene must be recessive.

"Hello, Gillian," Liesl said, nodding at me, her short blond hair pulled up into a tight pun at the base of her neck. "Do you have my car keys?"

"I let Anita borrow the car," I responded, tossing my purse onto my bed. Liesl twitched, but the small girl in front of her squealed before she could say anything.

"Ve, Liesl! Big sister Gillian brought someone with her," Feliciana said happily, bouncing on the bed where she sat cross-legged. She turned to me excitedly, "Are you dating again? Is she your girlfriend? Are you in love? She's so cute!"

I ignored the blush that was beginning to start up in my cheeks and leaned forward to pat the Italian girl on the head. "No Feliciana, this is my best friend, Maddie," I said, pulling the blond girl into the room, pleased to note that she was blushing too. "You've met her at least a dozen times before."

"Oh," the redhead said, frowning slightly before a smile lit up her face and she tried to turn to my sister. "Ve, ve, Liesl! Why isn't Gillian dating Maddie? They're so cute together! They would have adorable babies, and we could be the aunties to big sister Gillian's children! I would be a good auntie, wouldn't I, Liesl?"

Liesl sighed and gave an apologetic glance at Maddie, who'd turned even redder. "Feli, two girls can't have children by themselves."

"Then we could help them!"

My sister sighed and got up, having tied off the end of the redhead's braid. "Come on, Feliciana, let's go to your dorm." She took the shorter girl's hand and led her out of the room. As the door closed, I could hear the Italian girl asking my sister if they could go out for pasta. I laughed and turned back to Maddie, whose normal color was slowly returning.

"No matter how many times I've met her," she admitted, sitting down on my bed and toeing off her sandals, "I can never get used to her."

"It takes a while," I agreed, pulling out my GameCube from under the bed, "less time for me since I'm so awesome, but still a while. But honestly, I think she's good for Liesl. You've seen how needy and clingy Feliciana can be. Liesl thrives on being a caretaker, I think; it's too bad for her I was born the awesome older sibling."

"Hmm."

I turned to look at Maddie. "My awesome psychic powers have never failed me before. You're thinking about something, aren't you?"

She shook her head and stole a hair-band off my nightstand, tying her blond hair back before sliding off the bed to sit on the floor in front of the small television. I sat back next to her after plugging in the console and she looked at me, violet eyes flashing behind her glasses. "Tell me then: what do your awesome psychic powers _tell_ you I'm thinking about?"

"How awesome I am, of course."

"Close, but no cigar," she said, laughing, as she took the game controller I handed her. As she signed in as Player 2 to Super Smash Brothers Melee, she added, "I was just wondering why someone as awesome as you never seems to be in a relationship. I mean, you're really pretty, right? And fit. And with your beautiful white hair—guys think that's exotic. They're crazy for exotic, and I've seen how a couple of them look at you. Has anyone tried asking you out?"

"Nah. I think it's the eyes; they tend to intimidate people." I winked at her to make a point. She giggled and leaned over to press the start button on my controller.

"That could be it. But I still think they're pretty. Oh, damn, knocked off already?"

We played a couple rounds—me as Captain Falcon and Maddie as Link—before either of us began talking again. I coughed, leaning against the bed frame as the stats rolled across the screen.

"Have I ever told you about my last relationship?" She turned to me eagerly, setting down her controller and pulling up her knees. "It was near the beginning of eighth grade when we got together. We'd been flirting ever since the middle of seventh, I think. Well…more like I would point how out much more awesome I was than him, and then he would try to hit me with the sauce pan from Home Ec., or a textbook, or anything else he could get his hands on. You know, the pulling-pigtails kind of flirting. Anyway, one day during eighth grade it just hit me how cute and pretty he was, and I'd figure that, instead of being totally unawesome and denying my crush, I'd find an awesome way to ask him out. So—"

"Wait," Maddie interrupted, leaning forward to rest her chin on her knees. "I get the cute, but how was he pretty?"

I shrugged. "I kind of thought he was a girl up until two weeks after we started dating, when I realized that he went into the men's restroom during our dates." Her eyes widened, but she nodded, waiting for me to continue. "So anyway, in the third week of school, during lunch on a Friday, I got up on the table he was eating lunch at and began singing this song, 'A Whole New World' from that Disney movie, _Aladdin_. I—hey, don't laugh at me! I thought it was very romantic!"

"It was, it was," she said, giggling. "It's so unlike you, but at the same time, I can picture it happening so perfectly! But no, really, go on."

I huffed, ignoring the fact that I was now blushing, and continued, "I couldn't get past the first part, you know, where it's one Aladdin singing, before one of the administrators pulled me off the table, but I was able to give him the generic 'I like you, and you should go out with me because I'm the awesomest girl you'll ever meet' note before I got sent to the principal's office. I ended up getting detention for disturbing the peace, but it was totally worth it when he called me after school to ask me on a date."

"That's so cute," Maddie sighed happily, tilting her head. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"

"Hmm? Oh." I reached up to pushed back my bangs from my face. "He couldn't handle my awesomeness. We'd been going out for a month or so when he admitted that I wasn't exactly what he was looking for in a girl and dumped me, promising that we'd still be friends. I called him an insensitive, unawesome jackass, and said that there was a snowball's chance in hell we could be friends. The usual stuff. And then he met my cousin." I made a face. "Don't know what he saw in her, but it must've been something I didn't have."

Maddie frowned and reached forward to put a hand on my shoulder. "You were too awesome for him."

I opened my mouth to say 'I know, right?' but ended up saying a shy, "Thanks," instead. I cleared my throat and added, "It didn't really matter, though, because he ended up dumping Rosalind before high school anyways. The boy had commitment issues, I think."

Maddie laughed and turned around to face the television, leaning against me. "I'm really tired, Gillian," she said after a minute of watching the screen absently, yawning as she said so. I giggled and turned off the console before unplugging it.

"Wanna put a movie on to fall asleep to?" I asked, flipping through the channels with the remote. Maddie shrugged, her arms rubbing against mine, before she leaned her head on my shoulder. I grinned and put my arm around her, settling on _Girl, Interrupted_, some movie about a crazy lady in a mental hospital. It sounded kind of awesome, in a really interesting but creepy way, actually...

Despite the totally unawesome roller disco, my night turned out pretty awesome, I thought as my head rested on top of Maddie's. Within a couple minutes, we were both out.

-u-

(If anyone ever asked me out the way Prussia did to Hungary, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. Just saying. Also, whenever I listen to "Just Can't Wait to be King" from the Lion King, I always picture America as Simba, England as Zazu, and Canada as Nala. I'm ridiculous. xD)

("_Qui?_" is "who?" in French. Not something I'd want to hear from my girlfriend after two or three weeks of separation.)

I'm not sure if I wrote Prussia correctly (it's kind of hard for me to differentiate between America and Prussia, since they both think they're awesome), and I'm not sure if I used the correct tense for the telling of the back story, but I'm quite positive I got the bitter tone right at the beginning. You see, I'm very good at being bitter. (It's a personal failing I take advantage of very often.) But oh goodness, I wrote something in first person. I absolutely hate first person because trains of thought seem to run away from me, and I end up going off on tangents… For the record, I'm feeling an America POV story with minor angst and confusion (as provided by Canada) coming up soon…if I survive the first week or so of classes. And if I do survive, I wouldn't expect something so long as this… (God, I can't believe I've written this much!)

(I honestly didn't mean for France to be the antagonist, but someone had to break Canada's heart, and she pretty much wrote herself.)

I got 90 awesomes, including this one, which is pretty awesome. How about you?


	4. The Flaunting of Shirts with Low Cuts

**Author's Note: **Mlaaah. I'm so silly heehee. You guys deserve so much better than this. So I'm all caught up in doing my AP Euro work, and the teacher is kinda annoying me what with asking all these questions, and I'm like, "Screw this. I'm gonna go write a lesbian love story. Much better use of my time." So. Um. Here we go. I'm much better at writing femslash than slash, as I've discovered. I FEEL LIKE THIS MEANS SOMETHING. –denial- Even so, there isn't much of it in this, just a bunch of talking. Also, forgive my intense love for Women's Soccer. Women's Soccer, and procrastination. And for the record, I was having a difficult time coming up with titles, so "The Flaunting of Shirts with Low Cuts" is supposed to be a play on words of "The Haunting in Connecticut." Okay, so less play-on-words, more rhyming. Whatevs. As a note, I recently visited Davidson College, so the dorm rooms, etc. are loosely based off of those, because I preferred the Davidson dorms to the Wake Forest dorms.

**Disclaimer:**Ils (elles?) ne sont pas les mien(ne)s. I fixed my French.

**Playlist:**Within Temptation, Epica, Apocalyptica, Leaves' Eyes, and various other northern European goth metal bands. And Plump. Which is depression. It's really hard for me to write conflict, alright? Even though the conflict is less angst more hilarity.

**Note on Names:**Same as ever, duckies.

-u-

Ally was not used to waking up early in the morning: she had slept through eighty-five percent of her first period class all four years in high school; she had purposefully chosen classes that were taught in the late morning or early afternoon in college; she had talked her roommate into buying black-out curtains for the dorm; and she had conditioned herself to sleep through any sort of waking device, including but not limited to alarm clocks, televisions, Finnish death metal, and Gillian Beillschmidt.

What she had not conditioned herself to sleep through, however, was the high-pitched scream of a very confused Englishwoman.

To be fair, she had never figured that such a skill would ever be employed: she came from a tiny town in Midwestern America, and _fuck yeah _America was the greatest country on earth, but Midwestern America tended to lack foreign accents and the sort of experience that would have prepared her for such a situation.

Due to this lack of experience, it was only natural that when the petit Englishwoman, who only moments ago had been happily snuggled up next to her, gave an ear-piercing shriek, Ally was brought into a sudden, painful, state of wakefulness. She struggled to get to her feet as fast as she could, hoping to be a hero by saving the poor damsel who was obviously in distress and instead tripping on the many comforters underneath her as her leg began to cramp from being in an awkward position all night long.

"Sonnuva—" she cursed, falling forward onto the floor. Luckily, a pile of her own laundry caught her fall. Unluckily, she wasn't entirely convinced this was the clean pile as opposed to the many dirty piles. Meanwhile, her petit Englishwoman was having a mild freakout.

"Oh God, Oh God, where am I?" Aretha was muttering to herself, trying to push her tangled blond hair out of her face. When she finally had it pulled mostly to the side and out of the way, she tried to look around the dorm, taking in all she could in the light provided by the nearly over-heating laptop and the crack beneath the black-out curtains. A steady flow of, "Oh bugger, what the bloody fuck," was slipping past her sleep-numbed lips. Finally, her eyes landed on Ally who was staring up at her in amusement. A blush flooded the confused Brit's face. "We…we were watching a movie," she said, mainly for her own benefit. "And your, uh, roommate? She came in…but, left…and then we fell asleep. And," Aretha took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. "And then I woke up. Cuddling you."

Ally nodded happily. The cuddling was probably her favorite part. It allowed her, the hero, to thoroughly protect the damsel in distress!

"Oh," said Aretha stiffly, pulling the nearest blanket up to her chin. Ally's face fell.

"Arethaaa," she whined, crawling over until she was at least two feet deep into Aretha's personal space bubble. "Aretha, why you no like me?"

"Perhaps it could be because of your appalling destruction of the English language?" Aretha snapped back before shutting her mouth with a click. Her blush became even darker. She gently pushed Ally out of her space and stood up, brushing off dust from her clothes. Clearing her throat, she said as amicably as possible, "Thank you again for letting me stay here in my, er, time of need, but I really ought to be going—"

"Hang on!" Ally scrambled to get to her feet, taking care not to trip on any other lumps of fabric. "It's Saturday! There are, like, absolutely no classes today! What else could possibly get you in such a hustle? You're tryin' to get outta here faster'n a kangaroo rat on crack in a room full of half-starved rattlers!"

Aretha looked terribly conflicted, as if she were trying to decide whether or not to respond with, "What the hell did you just say?" Ally was used to this: some people just couldn't handle the brilliance that was Midwestern American colloquialisms. Instead however, Aretha just shifted her weight and looked otherwise flustered. Ally jumped at this opening to shine light into this dull (but still so very interesting) girl's life.

"Hey," she said, slinging an arm around the shorter girl's shoulder, "let's hang out today! Yanno, like chillin' at the mall, and watching a movie, and that sort of shizz. Sounds fun, yeah?"

The other girl pulled a face. Ally pulled her closer into her body (because hey, Aretha was small and warm and soft, and reminded her a little bit of a bunny she once owned when she was younger) and wheedled, "C'mon, Artie, do you really have anything better to do than hang out with me?"

"Don't call me Artie," she growled, trying to shift away from Ally. After a few seconds, however, she realized the futility of the action and sighed, slumping into Ally's one-armed embrace. "No, I don't have anything better to do. Fine. Let me go take a shower."

"Victory!"

Aretha rolled her eyes and squeezed out from under Ally's arm, striding out into the hall. The American followed her, fully intending to set a time and thus commit her to the outing, but Aretha had already reached her dorm room, and was trying her hardest to phase through the wood. Or at least, that's what Ally assumed she was doing: the shorter blond had, after discovering that the lock was still engaged, pressed herself fully against the door and was pounding on it with both fists. Just as the girl had backed up far enough to give the door a good solid kick, the handle turned and the door opened.

And then, as if heralded by the sort of bad jazz that plays at the beginning of the classier porn movies (not that Ally would know), the French girl sauntered out of the dorm room, her hips swaying to a beat only Francine could hear. Ally only caught a sudden flash of pale (which, after a slight delay, her brain identified as skin) before Aretha's hand suddenly covered her eyes. She reached up to tug down the obscuring digits, but Aretha had latched on with a vengeance.

"Francince!" she heard Aretha shriek right next to her. "What the bloody fuck do you think you're doing? No one wants to see—see all that!" Ally could easily imagine Aretha waving her free arm around, vaguely indicating what the world didn't want to see. "Why, pray tell, aren't you wearing any clothing? For God's sake, there are innocents here!"

"Oh, _ma chère_," the other girl laughed, coming closer. "I 'ighly doubt that there are that many innocents in this building. Speaking of which… I noticed that you weren't in the dorm when I got back, _ma Anglaise_. You spent your night well with this _belle fleur, oui_?" Francine laughed again as Aretha spluttered and tried to deny anything and everything; Ally stood where she was, surprisingly silent and slightly confused by the foreign language that kept slipping out of Francine's mouth. "Any'ow," the French girl continued, "I saw that _tu as oblié ta clé sur la table, donc je laisserai la porte overt, oui?_"

"I've told you a thousand times, I don't speak your bloody language!" Aretha shouted, finally removing the hand over Ally's eyes. Francine giggled to herself and pranced off down the hall to the showers. Ally stared at the youthful naked body for half a moment before announcing to no one in particular,

"Bruh, I am not down with that!"

Aretha sighed loudly and pushed the door to her dorm all the way open. Before she disappeared into the room entirely, she paused in the doorframe, facing Ally. "What time do you propose we meet to, er, hang out?"

"Hmm? Oh, how about we meet in the lounge at one?"

The girl nodded. "That works. I'll…see you soon, then?"

"Yep!" Ally gave the girl a bright grin and received a slightly reserved smile in return. It was then that Ally decided that she really wanted to see that smile more often. Pleasantly surprised with the turn of events thus far in the day, Ally turned and retreated to her own dorm. She shut the door and basked in the near darkness, feeling sleepiness creep back into her limbs. It was, what? Nine? Ally was never up earlier than noon on Saturday! She fluffed up the blankets and pillows still on the floor and flopped down, expecting to sleep until twelve-thirty or so, at which point she'd get up, speed shower, and meet Aretha for their date.

Whoa, wait. Date? Ally turned so that she was on her back, frowning up at the ceiling. It's totally not a date, Ally thought to herself. It's just two girls hangin' at the mall. Just chillin' and being ho-bros. Nothing date-ish about that, right? Girls do that all the time, right? Yeah, totally. Her roommate—Marylin? Matilda? Oh, wait, Madeleine, that was it!—and that French girl used to hang at the mall all the time, and there was nothing even vaguely romantic about those two. Sure, she forgot her roommate's name and existence all the time, but she would definitely be the first to know when the girl was dating someone. Especially if that someone happened to be the perverted and slightly scary roommate of Aretha.

Relieved that what she had gotten herself into was clearly a platonic relationship and had nothing to do with the pleasant butterflies that fluttered in her stomach whenever she saw the British girl wearing her New York shirt, Ally smiled to herself and curled against one of her pillows, ready to fall asleep. Just as she was about to drift off to dreamland, lulled into a false sense of security, the door burst open revealing far too much light and far too much Gillian Beillschmidt. (Though Ally could sleep through nearly all Gillian-related disturbances, she must first be asleep in order to be impervious to the annoying albino.) She glared at the white-haired girl standing in to the doorway, curling tighter around her pillow. Gillian was wearing black and white running shorts and a matching sports bra, and just behind her, Ally could see a girl with long wavy blond hair staring slightly distractedly at the albino girl.

"What are you guys doing here?" Ally demanded sleepily. The blond girl was shaken out of her trance, and pushed past Gillian to enter the dorm.

"I'm your roommate," she said softly, adding a barely-there, "dipshit."

"What? No you aren't—oh, wait. Hey, Maddie! It _is _you! What're you doing today?"

Maddie sighed, and rifled through a pale red bookbag in the corner of the room. Gillian had followed her and was casually leaning against the wardrobe. "I'm getting my iPod so Gilly can borrow it."

Ally scoffed. "What's she need it for?"

"I'm going for a run," Gillian smirked. She made a show of looking up and down Ally's body on the floor. "You could use one too, fatty."

"Oy!" Ally scrambled up from her nest of blankets to point an accusatory finger at the girl. "I am not fat. And you, you could use some sun, creep!"

"Hey—!"

"Alright, ladies," Maddie said as loud as she could, coming to stand between the two glaring girls, "Break it up. Ally, it wasn't very nice of you to call Gillian a creep, and Gillian," she added as the white-haired girl stuck out her tongue at the American, "calling Ally a fatty wasn't nice either. Even if it is sort of true. Here's my iPod, and I expect it back by tomorrow."

"Thanks, sugar," Gillian said, taking the red iPod out of her friend's hand. She bent to press a kiss against the Canadian's cheek. "See ya later, Maddie," she said as she stepped out of the dorm, sending one last dirty look Ally's way.

Maddie gave the doorframe a rather sappy smile, and sat down on her bed, pulling her bookbag up with her. As she began humming a few bars of an extremely jaunty song that Ally couldn't quite place, the American sat down on her own bed, giving her roommate a suspicious glare. After a few moments of aimlessly shuffling through her bag, Maddie noticed the look she was receiving. "What is it this time?" she demanded.

"Why do you hang out with her so much?"

Maddie flushed. "Because she's a good friend. She's been there for me—"

"She's such a lesbian!" Normally, Ally didn't have anything against lesbians—hell, the entire dorm building was filled with 'em, right?—but when it came to her poor, innocent roommate who could be corrupted… "She's just trying to get into your panties!"

"Wait, no! No, she's not just trying—" the girl stuttered, "Al, listen to what you're saying! You sound so, so—"

"So what?"

"Whatever the cross between a mother hen and a self-hating gay is. You sound like that, eh."

"I'm not a self-hating gay!"

"Fine, you're a deeply-in-denial one then!"

"I'm not gay!" Ally insisted vehemently, slightly confused by the sudden turn in the conversation. Wasn't _she_ supposed to be the one making all the accusations? She glared into the violet eyes of her roommate.

"Oh for God's sake, Al, you watch women's soccer constantly! And not in the sort of enthusiastic fan of the sport sort of way!" Maddie sprang from her seat on the bed and stormed to Ally's wardrobe where she flung open the doors. The inside of the wardrobe was just as messy as Ally's side of the room, but what really caught the eye was the absurd amount of posters lining the inside, all of a fairly young soccer player wearing the number fifteen. Maddie gestured at the sight, continuing, "You have so many pictures of Megan Rapinoe plastered to the inside of your wardrobe, it's absolutely terrifying!"

"Don't bring Meg into this! I just—I just value her athletic ability!"

"You scream at her to take her shirt off whenever she scores a goal, or helps score a goal, or just shows up on screen!"

"That doesn't count!" Ally insisted, rushing up to slam the wardrobe doors shut protectively.

"Oh, and does Aretha not count either?"

"No!" she shouted immediately, amending, "What do mean by that?"

"C'mon, Al, stop kidding yourself. You've got the hots for this little British chick. You're putting the moves on her!

"I'm—I'm not…" As her words trailed off uncertainly, Ally sank back to her seat on the bed. She didn't act any different around Aretha than she did with other people, right? So yeah, she had been keeping an eye out for the petit blond since they had met two weeks ago, but that didn't really mean anything. And okay, maybe she had been running around without a bra more than usual, but... Maddie sighed and sat down next to her, patting her shoulder awkwardly.

"Oh honey. Honey. You are," she said in the most comforting way she could. "You watch horror movies with her, even when you _know _how they affect you; you invite her to spend the night even when she was probably rude to you—"

"She wasn't _that _rude!"

"And listen to yourself! You're standing up for her! You probably asked her out, too, didn't you?"

"No, we're just gonna hang—"

"Ugh, Al. Really, just listen to me: You. Like. Her. In the gayest way possible. You want to watch _The L Word_ with her. You want to take her to see _Black Swan_. You'd like to take her to a concert of The Indigo Girls, Tegan and Sara, and TATU—"

"But TATU isn't even a legit lesbian group! They're fakin' gay!"

"Okay, that self-incriminating evidence aside, listen to me," Maddie said, forcibly turning her roommate's face to lock blue eyes with violet. "You want this to work out, eh? Don't talk, listen. When you get to the mall, ask her if she wants to eat lunch. If she says yes, for the love of God, Al, don't you dare take her to one of your regular fast food places. Just let her choose, and be sure to offer to pay. Same thing goes for what movie you two're gonna watch. I don't care if you really want to see the newest superhero movie, or horror movie, or whatever: Let. Her. Choose. Got it, eh?"

Ally pouted, prepared to deny anything and everything that was said in the last five minutes, but instead nodded as a blush flooded her face. "Ugh, fine, Maddie," she sighed melodramatically. "But I'm telling you, I'm so not gay for Aretha. Heroes don't turn gay for their damsels."

Choosing not to comment on the last bit of her roommate's assertion, Maddie instead said, "Of course you aren't." She gave Ally one last awkward pat on the shoulder and crossed the room to her own wardrobe where she pulled out some clothes and her toiletries. "Now if you'll excuse me," she said softly as she made for the door, "I have to go take a shower. I still feel sticky from last night. Then I have a project to finish before Monday."

Nodding, mellow and somewhat sleepy from the sudden and uncalled for heart-to-heart (though it was more of a Maddie-yells-and-Ally-listens-and-tries-not-to-cry) with her roommate, Ally waved Maddie out of the door. Then, yawning, she pulled up a blanket from the floor, wrapped herself in it, and fell asleep.

-u-

One-oh-five found Ally rushing down the stairs to the lounge area, trying to wrestle her shirt over her still-wet blond hair. She had, fortunately, found the elusive pile of clean laundry in her room, and had chosen from it a pair of dark blue jean shorts and a very low-cut red-and-white striped long-sleeve shirt. To finish off the outfit, she had yanked on her favorite cowboy boots before racing out of the door. As she slammed open the door to the lounge, wallet, keys, and phone clutched tightly in her hand, Ally's eyes danced over the social area, hoping that her new friend hadn't abandoned her for being late. Her heart jumped (for purely platonic reasons, she tried and failed to convince herself) as she spotted her petit English friend sitting in a slightly isolated chair. Aretha was wearing her hair in low ponytail with a tasteful amount of barrette pulling back the bangs. Or at least, Ally assumed it was a tasteful amount; when it came to hair accessories, she had never really learned when so much was too much. The Brit was also wearing a cute black skirt and mint green sweater-set.

Internally celebrating the fact that Aretha hadn't taken Ally's lateness too personally, Ally ran up to the girl's chair and threw her arms around Aretha's shoulders. "Artie!" she shouted gleefully, earning stares from the few other girls in the room.

Aretha jumped in her seat and turned her head upwards to glare at the American. "I've told you, it's Aretha," she said, "and you're late."

"Sorry, sugar," Ally laughed. She had yet to remove her arms from Aretha's shoulder; actually, she had yet to feel the urge to do such a thing. "So," she began, dangling a set of keys in front of Aretha's face, "do you want take my sweet ride to the mall, or do you want to catch the University's bus?"

Continuing to stare up at Ally, Aretha frowned, thinking. "What, pray tell, is this sweet ride of yours?"

Ally grinned: she'd been hoping her new friend would ask. "It is the most beast, the most boss ride in the parking lot. She is a battered veteran, three years my senior, and the most patriotic little pickup truck you will ever see! Best damn automobile Detroit ever put together, I swear. My Lady Liberty's been in so many accidents—"

"On second thought," Aretha interrupted, her face drained of color. "Let's take the bus. It leaves in five minutes, and I'm sure you'll be happy to save all that money on gas."

"Sweet."

Ally swung around to the front of the chair and perched on one of the armrests, knocking her knee against Aretha's. Oh yes, this outing was going to be awesome. How could it not be? She was the hero after all.

-u-

I am terribly sorry for the overuse of French in this chapter. It's just…uh. I dunno. After three years of the language, it just forces itself on you, yanno? So, "ma chere" is "my dear," "ma Anglaise" is "my Englishwoman," "belle fleur" is "beautiful flower," and "tu a oblie ta cle sur la table, donc je laisserai la porte overt, oui?" is "you forgot your key on the table, so I will leave the door open, yes?" I probably should have used immediate future instead of future, but…I need practice. If anything's wrong…laugh at my incompetence and move on, please.

I'll probably have their mall adventure in the next Ally-Aretha chapter. Right now I'm just trying to decide if I want to post a Poland and Liet backstory in this story, or create a new one… I'd like to know what you guys think.

Aaaaand, sooo sorry for the delay. I'm just a terrible person.


End file.
